Faced with stagnating productivity of 2,000 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha) in south India, the Tea Research Foundation (TRF) on Saturday released for commercial production a new high-yielding, drought tolerant tea clone.
“The new clone, termed TRF-5, is superior in quality, has more leaves and can be harvested both manually and mechanically. It can survive dry spell and is suitable for cultivation across southern states,” TRF director P Mohan Kumar said.
The new clone has been developed after extensive research and field trials in the research stations of TRF in and around Coonoor, Nilgiris, Valparai and Anamalais, over the last 25 years. The TRF-5 is a hybrid product of biclonal progenies of TRI-2025 (female) and Upasi-21 (male).
TRF is the research wing of United Planters’ Association of South India (Upasi) and headquartered at Coonoor. Till now, it has developed and released 33 varieties of tea. It has identified six compatible graft partners to develop new bushes from the TRF-5 clones, he said.
TRF-5 is more suited to replace the aged or diseased tea plant populations and for the re-plantation scheme of the Tea Board under the special purpose tea fund (SPTF), Kumar told Business Standard after releasing the variety at the 119th annual conference of Upasi, here on Saturday.
In the first cycle of three years, the new clone will yield 2,455kg per hectare (ha), 4,535kg/ha in fourth year and 7,225kg/ha in fifth year, TRF assistant director R Victor Ilango said.
“Of the five clones we have developed in the past two decades, the TRF-5 has the second highest average yield – 6,126 kg/ha against 7,797 kg/ha by TRF-1, which was released in 2000 for commercial production,” Kumar noted.
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The TRF has registered the new tea clone with the Tea Board as an accepted clone for new and replanting by small growers and corporates. It has started distributing the cuttings to tea estates in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka to raise the plants for plucking as Orthodox or CTC (crush, tear and curl) leaves.
TRF plans to first sell about 500-1,000 cuttings of TRF-5 to each tea garden in the three southern states at a price of 50 paise per cutting. It also plans to undertake trials in north eastern states next year.
According to the Tea Board estimates, about 50 per cent of the 120,181 hectares across south India will be undergoing re-plantation during the next 5-10 years where the bushes are 50 years old.
To protect the new clone’s intellectual property (IP), the foundation will soon file for patenting it with the regulatory authorities. “We are waiting for the government to extend the Protection of Plant Varieties Act and Farmers Right Act to plantation crops so that we can file for registering the new clone,” Kumar added.